Dusk

It was my first time this year... When it's a warm and clear evening, I sometimes like to sit at the bottom of the garden as dusk falls with a glass of something and watch and listen to the ending of the day. To hear the birds singing and watch for the flitting of bats in the twilight. To see the sillhouette of the leaves of the trees above as the light fades. To see  the colours fade with the dying light to grey and then black, as the birds, one by one, fall silent. And then to see the stars come out, brightest first until I have a speckled canopy above me. It is my Evening Watch.*

I took my camera out with me last night... Watch the day fade with me...

I saw a couple of bats flitting about, but I couldn't catch them on camera. They are so fast!  I do love seeing the crazy turns they make.

Venus is extraordinarily bright at the moment in the evening sky.

And after a while other stars started to appear as the colour leached from the sky.

But then I discovered what I could see with my camera at its maximum zoom when I pointed it at Venus.

Wow!

And so to bed, perchance to dream.. But before I go, a favorite compline hymn to go with the gorgeous Holst anthem linked to at the start.

*It is a most extraordinary piece. It completely breaks the rules about parallel fourths piling them on top of each other. And the effect is amazing. I have sung the piece only twice - once in rehearsal where we sang it through to get the notes and then in a choral compline service. Clare college chapel, Cambridge, 11pm with no light or extraneous noise apart from the sputtering candles. Remembering it still sends a shiver down my spine after more than 40 years.